Beginning a musical career can be difficult if you do not know how to break into the mainstream industry. Everyone has dreams and yours are no less important, but unless you know the right people to contact or the best businesses to approach, you could be left floundering in one spot, unable to move forward and unable to go back. If you are looking to carry your singing, acting, performing, or unique career forward to the next level, you will need to know what kind of people to consult and where to go.

Depending on what exactly you are searching for you should find an excellent music consultant. There are companies locally that are available to assist you in determining what music would best suit you, or how to best go about presenting your music you have either written or had written for you. Your performance is directly related to your ability and your presentation and if you have someone that is qualified in that aspect, it will help to move your career further ahead in the right direction that much faster.

The ins and outs of the music industry can be extremely overwhelming to the layman and offers no respite to singers and performers alike, regardless of your talent. You need a music industry consultant to help you understand everything you will be involved in and help you keep a fresh perspective on what will be involved in your journey to the top. With their help and assistance you will be able to better understand everything surrounding your endeavors. Although they can only show you the way to a certain limit, their input will be helpful toward setting your goals and accomplishing them.

Looking at things from the other end of the business spectrum, engaging the assistance of a music business consultant is another excellent way of getting a handle on the music industry from a business perspective to better fulfill any goals you are trying to achieve. There are various fronts to the business aspect of music, and knowing the right people can raise your chances of succeeding. The business end of show business can be confusing, but hiring the right consultant can put you in a better place to understand and use the benefits to move up and forward toward the career you desire.

Keep these in mind when you are beginning your music, singing, or acting career. There will be many ups and downs during your journey, why make them any more difficult than necessary?

About The Author

Ty Cohen
Platinum Millennium Publishing
PO Box 644
Garner, NC 27529

Ty@PlatinumMillennium.com
1-866-752-9968
Want Free Music Biz Advice?

Who else wants to receive free advice from “Mr X”, a man who has helped artist such as New Edition, Madonna, Quincy Jones, Puff Daddy, Prince and More, including up an comers just like you, to sell nearly 150 Gold & Platinum Albums Worldwide!

Now he wants to help you, by offering you private consulting as well as giving you a free copy of his audio CD “7 Golden Secrets to Succeeding in the Music Industry” Visit http://www.MusicBizCenter.com/freecd1 to get your free CD mailed out to you right now.

ArticleCity.com - your one-stop source for free articles. | Copyright © 2001-Present ArticleCity.com

February 21st, 2008
Categories: Music Business . Author: RSM Admin . Comments: 1 Comment

We’ve added a new feature hear at RSM. You’re now able to have our posts sent directly to you via e-mail. It’s basically our eZine mailing list, but as we rarely ever send out out eZines, we set it up so that our feed now broadcasts via e-mail to our list members.

So, now you can get the latest RSM content ASAP right there with your e-mail. And when we do have something eZine worthy, you’ll also be set up for that. Sign up today!!!

February 21st, 2008
Categories: RockStar Site Info . Author: RSM Admin . Comments: No Comments

It looks like U2 may be the next big act that’s leaving the label system and embracing the future. Fox News is reporting that the band is considering jumping ship from UMG and signing a deal with concert promoter Live Nation that would include future record releases.

If U2 makes this kind of deal, along with the Stones and Madonna, soon all bets will be off at the majors over long term or heritage artists. The Eagles are already on their own through Wal-Mart, Paul McCartney, James Taylor, Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell have jumped to Starbucks’ Hear Music, and Radiohead deserted EMI for their own company.

It’s a sign of the times, really. The economics of the business are changing and people are starting to realize it. You need to start handling your music career differently than you would have in the past. Why waste your time or energy trying to make things happen the old way when you could work smart the right way and take things into your own hands?

February 2nd, 2008
Categories: Music Business . Author: RSM Admin . Comments: No Comments

Copied from Sonibids - see site for more details.

Have your songs heard by a panel of professional songwriters and other music industry professionals from the Nashville Music Community as well as earn the chance to perform at MerleFest, the Americana music celebration, by entering the 16th annual Chris Austin Songwriting Contest. MerleFest now involves more than 80,000 participants including some 100 artists and bands that perform on one or more of the festival’s thirteen stages. All 2008 songwriting competition finalists will receive lodging for 4 nights at MerleFest, with first place winners receiving a performance at the Cabin Stage at MerleFest. All finalists will receive cash and other prizes for their winning entries (see prizes below). The Chair of the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest is Jim Lauderdale.

Entrants must submit songs in one of four categories – country, bluegrass, gospel, and general. We received 1,088 entries for 2007. The Chris Austin Songwriting Contest invites three finalists in each category – based on judging by panels of Nashville music industry professionals, to come to MerleFest for the finals on April 25, 2008.

The Chris Austin Songwriting Contest is open to those whose primary source of income is not derived from songwriting or publishing. First place winners during the past five years may not re-enter in the specific category in which they won. Co-writers are subject to the same eligibility requirements as the entrant.

ALL FINALISTS WILL RECEIVE:
Lodging for 4 Nights at MerleFest
All Access MerleFest credentials for three
One box of D’Addario Strings
One-year subscription to Acoustic Guitar magazine

1st PLACE WINNERS WILL RECEIVE:
A performance on the Cabin Stage at MerleFest
A check for $300
An additional box of D’Addario Strings

2nd PLACE WINNERS WILL RECEIVE:
A check for $250
A slot in the Songwriter’s Coffeehouse at MerleFest

3rd PLACE WINNERS WILL RECEIVE:
A check for $50
A slot in the Songwriter’s Coffeehouse at MerleFest

A then unknown Gillian Welch was one of the winners of the initial Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at MerleFest in 1993. Recent winners have included Tift Merritt, Michael Reno Harrell, Adrienne Young, Martha Scanlan, David Via, and Johnny Williams. Sarah Lee Guthrie, Jason Harrod, Dave Wilson, and Holly Lowman judged the finals of the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest, which attracted a record 1172 entries, 18 more than 2005.

First round judging from submitted recordings produced twelve finalists who competed with the following winners:

• General Category: “Am I Still” by John & Michelle Law & Regie Hamm;
• Bluegrass Category: “Enough of You” by Jeanette Williams;
• Country Category: “The Roadkill Bill” by Brant Miller, Dave Woodward & Don King;
• Gospel Category: “Blessed by the Day” by Korby Lenker.

Net proceeds from the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest go to support the mission of Wilkes Community College.

Official Website: http://www.merlefest.org

February 1st, 2008
Categories: Music Contests and News . Author: RSM Admin . Comments: No Comments

Well, if you’ve read much of this blog you know that I push the promotion end of the business. You also have probably found that I am not a huge fan of the record companies, because the need for a record company is diminishing by the day.

So, I found a link to a music promotion course that features a long bit of sales copy stating much of what I preach. Now, I’m not endorsing this course; mainly because I haven’t actually taken it, but I think the copy is worth a read.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed it is that people seem to like a second opinion. If this helps to sway you to the dark side then so much the better. The point here is that
you need to understand the paradigm shift that’s going on and get in the position to take advantage of it. While I’m not fan of sensational clams (yet another reason I’m not endorsing this program), there is still a message that you need to her. So check out the copy and think it over.

…and if you do buy this course and there’s something to it let me know and I’ll look into it.

January 31st, 2008
Categories: Music Business, Promotion . Author: RSM Admin . Comments: 4 Comments

I just stumbled upon Beat Wire, a service that can distribute your press releases to thousands of media outlets. Now there are several services that will do this, but Beat Wire is different be they’ll distribute your press release to music related sources specifically.

This is a great service because if you have a professional looking setup (ie. a website, a press kit, a record, etc.), you’ll be able to project your band as a serious act and maybe get some coverage in the music media.

The reason I stress being professional is that the people that receive these releases get several of them all the time. Services like this make it easy for anyone to send them anything that they want and the majority of what that they get is unprofessional crap.

You need to distinguish yourself and the best way to do this is to put your best face on when you make contact. You should only send out a press release if you have something news worthy to promote. If you’re touring, releasing a record or have something else to publicize you can and should issue a press release. You shouldn’t send one out if you just finished a demo or formed a new band - this is bush league and the people that are neck deep in the business don’t have the time.

In running a music related site I can tell you that there are people out there that don’t much care where they’re sending things, they just send them. If you’re reading this site, you probably know that it is a music promotion site, yet I get countless form e-mails from musicians that ask for reviews or stories about their new demo. Besides having these e-mails sent to me with less than a thought about who they were actually sending them to, they failed to send out anything worth writing about. No one who can do anything about a great undiscovered band has the time to seek out every undiscovered band to see if they’re great. You need to impress them or you’re wasting your time.

If you’re having trouble figuring out what to release, think about the bands that you see covered in the music press. Not the Amy Whinehouse-tabloid end, but the business side. They get coverage for all of the business end stuff.

As for writing the release, you can also have them write it for you if you’re not up to it. This is probably best if you aren’t much of a writer or if you don’t know anyone who can write. The press release is written much like a news story and can look amateurish if not done well. There are many books on the subject, but if you need to get your release done and out it’s worth checking out their writing service.

So if you have you have your act together, and you have something worthwhile to promote, check out Beat Wire.

January 29th, 2008
Categories: Music Business, Promotion . Author: RSM Admin . Comments: No Comments

You may have heard that there is an effort under way to make it legal for internet service providers to charge website owners for preferred loading speed; meaning, large companies, who can afford it will have the way faster load times and downloads than small indie sites like this one… and probably yours to.

As you can imagine, this has gotten lot of people’s attention-namely bloggers, small site owners and the netroots. For musicians and indie labels this means that the majors can again enjoy an edge by being able to pay to get this preferred access.

This is just an example of businesses trying to figure out how to bring in additional revenue streams to grow even larger. The internet service providers already make money off of you, the internet user, so now they want to make money off of content providers.

This would be like a car company making a car that only drives well, if you’re going to a mall or a certain shopping center, but the car wouldn’t drive as well if you were going to grandma’s house. You, as the car buyer, don’t want that, do you?

Of course not-that’s just stupid. In their quest for higher returns, the ISPs are overlooking the ones that pay the bills… all of you out there in internet land.

Personally, I love when companies like this get greedy; it means one thing…

Innovation is on its way!

You see one of the great things about the internet is that it tends to help “The Man” realignment his perspective when the blind quest for cash makes him do stupid things. It’s amazing how an entire industry can seem to find their soul when they’re staring down the barrel of the next big thing.

Let’s take a little trip back in time shall we…

It’s the late 90s, there’s a lot of great music coming out, and the major labels are rolling in it; and why not. They’re charging a whopping $20+ for their entire catalogs. I distinctly remember this because I learned about a new internet thing in the same week that I bought my copy of Magical Mystery Tour.

I was complaining to a computer savvy friend about how I wanted to buy a bunch of albums that weekend, but the sticker shock resulted in my only buying one. He agreed and mentioned a little service called Napster that let you download music for free. Now, at the time, I commuted to school, I only had a 56k connection and my desktop didn’t have a CD burner – I really couldn’t do much with this info. People on campus, with the school provided broadband connection, did take advantage of Napster.

A few months later, Metallica and the record companies saw their profits shrinking and cried fowl. Their outrage was not met with much sympathy from the public; after all, we were the ones getting shafted.

Napster wasn’t the cause of the problem, it was the result.

When I walked into that record store a few moths earlier I had $40 in my pocket and I was looking to buy two or three CDs at around $12-15 each. I left with one, because it was $21 dollars and that didn’t leave me with enough for another $20 CD. The record companies lost out on $19 of sales, not because of piracy, but because of greed.

The birth of the MP3 lead to the discovery of electronic transfer of music via the internet.It started with piracy, but turned into capitalism when the iPod came out and iTunes (as well as other services) started selling individual songs at a fraction of the price. Record companies had to drop their prices because the masses decided that they didn’t like what was going on.

This is why Net Neutrality will ultimately win out over greed. We don’t want a slower connection to the sites that we want to go to. Broadband companies use their speed as an advertising point, why would they intentionally slow down part of their service?

If they did what they seem to be threatening to do, some ambitious nineteen year old nerd is just going to figure out a way to set things straight and make things better. They’ll get tons of venture capital and start a new, completely neutral broadband company, steal all the customers away from the non-neutral ISPs and make billions… and chances are the new service will have some other innovation that the current crop of ISPs can’t offer.

So I say if they want to kill net neutrality, bring it on. I can’t wait to get net neutral broadband Wi-Fi from cell towers anywhere in the country… god bless innovation.

“Greed is good.” – Gordon Gekko, Wall Street (1987)

October 30th, 2007
Categories: Philosophy & Theory, Online Resources . Author: RSM Admin . Comments: 1 Comment

Again I find myself apologizing - this time for jumping the gun, and celebrating a triumphant return that wasn’t so triumphant after all.

Let me explain.

I was all set to get back to blogging here again when I posted my last post. Having straightened out my health issues enough that I could continue, I had a real post partially written, and I planned on finishing it that weekend.

That was before a new and completely unrelated health issue came up.

I know, I’m a mess.

Well, I’ve taken the time to heal, been in an out of the doctors offices, and had more tests done than I care to remember. It looks like I’m okay now, so I’m looking to get back on track with this site.

Please accept my humble apology and bear with me as I try and get things back in order.

Thanks for sticking with me,

-Pat

October 27th, 2007
Categories: RockStar Site Info . Author: RSM Admin . Comments: 3 Comments

Wow, has it really been two weeks?  Well it’s good to see that not everyone has given up on me.  Thanks for hanging in there while I’m going through all this doctor stuff.  I’m feeling much better and I expect to be posting again with some regularity by Monday.  Sorry I’ve been M.I.A. for so long.  I look forward to getting back on the horse am working on some post ideas as we speak.  Thanks for understanding. Stay tuned. 

-Pat

October 5th, 2007
Categories: RockStar Site Info . Author: RSM Admin . Comments: 1 Comment

As a professional writer and occasional music manager, I often encounter bands and solo musicians that work very hard to attract attention from music management agencies. Unfortunately, a legion of grifters uses the raw desire for success against many smart, talented music professionals. If a representative from a music management agency contacts you, use these three guidelines to determine whether they’re on the level:

1. Real music management agencies will never, ever ask you for money up front. Managers make commission on their clients’ earnings, and experienced managers understand that an unknown artist doesn’t have much money. By taking on “developmental clients,” music management agencies cultivate both business and goodwill that they hope will pay off when an artist enjoys a modest breakthrough. On the other hand, fly-by-night music management agencies run by rip-off artists know that there are plenty of talented people who are willing to believe that a fee of a few hundred dollars will get them attention from record labels and from radio stations. While it’s legitimate for a very small music management agency to ask for a small retainer to cover overhead expenses, this fee should be negotiated in advance and should be billed after the agency has done some work on a client’s behalf.

2. Real music management agencies can point you in the direction of successful clients, or can admit that they’re still so new that they haven’t had any breakout stars on their roster. Believe it or not, some of the most influential music managers of the last five decades had little or no experience in the music business. They just had the drive and the stamina to do great work for equally talented clients.

Meanwhile, you can tell most rip-off music management agencies by looking at their web sites or at their offices. If your potential managers seem to have collected hundreds of “grip and grin” photographs of themselves with some major stars, ask whether the manager did any actual work with that artist, or whether the just love to snap photos at industry “meet and greet” events. Many Nashville con artists stuff their offices full of artist photos to deliberately overwhelm the senses – and the judgment – of potential victims.

3. Real music management agencies handle business at the office, not at the gig. Professional music managers understand that live shows are the best possible marketing opportunities for bands to grow their audience and sell their merchandise. After all, the more money a band makes, the more money a music manager makes. Professional managers will, most often, grab some contact information from a band member or from the merchandise table, so they can make contact during business hours.

Unfortunately, many bands get taken in by the rip-off music manager that trades on the adrenaline rush after a live set. These scam artists often slide up to the stage right after a set, buying drinks (or even supplying drugs) to their targets. They play off the notion that many musicians love to party, and that signing with their (bogus) music management agency can lead to plenty more party nights. Before long, the so-called manager has snagged a hefty retainer, which they usually use to fund parties with their new marks.

Remember, professional music management agencies recruit new clients based on measurable results, not just based on a band’s performance at one club night or at one music conference. Just as sporting talent scouts keep an eye on potential pro athletes throughout their high school and college careers, real music management agencies may be watching your band grow from a distance. In the meantime, rely on your friends, your family, and your street team to provide the foundation you need to attract the right professional manager for your career.

About The Author

Joe Taylor Jr. has written four books about the music business for aspiring musicians, including “Music Management for the Rest of Us.” You can learn more about finding professional music management agencies at: http://www.musicmanagementfortherestofus.com/agencies/

ArticleCity.com - your one-stop source for free articles. | Copyright © 2001-Present ArticleCity.com

September 21st, 2007
Categories: Guest Posts, Music Business . Author: RSM Admin . Comments: No Comments